1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an in-plane liquid crystal display (LCD) apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an in-plane LCD apparatus, liquid crystal is driven by an electric field generated horizontally with respect to substrates (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,831 & JP-A-56-91277).
In a prior art in-plane liquid crystal display apparatus including a glass substrate, a counter glass substrate, and a liquid crystal layer sandwiched thereby, a plurality of gate bus lines, a plurality of drain bus lines, a plurality of pixel electrodes each connected via a switching element to one of the drain bus lines, and a common electrode are formed on one of the glass substrates. Also, an optical shield layer is formed on the counter glass substrate and covers the drain bus lines. This will be explained later in detail.
In the prior art in-plane type LCD apparatus, however, since the optical shield layer is provided on the counter glass substrate, not on the glass substrate, the optical shield layer needs to be large in view of the alignment accuracy between the glass substrate and the counter glass substrate. This substantially reduces the numerical aperture of the apparatus.
In addition, spurious weak lateral electric fields caused by the pixel electrodes and the drain bus lines are generated within the liquid crystal layer, which modulates a lateral electric field as a signal. As a result crosstalk it generated, thus remarkably reducing the display quality.